War, Oil & Wall Street, Short-Term Winners and Losers

Why doesn't inflation feel like the official 3%?Because inflation is the rate at which prices rise, while affordability is the level of prices you have to live with — and that level never resets. Retirees also buy a different basket than the CPI emphasizes: shelter costs, insurance, property taxes, healthcare, prescriptions, food, and fuel, several of which run far hotter than headline inflation. Oil compounds it, touching every leg of the delivery chain. A resilient retirement plan stress-tests income needs well above the Fed's target and fights back with pricing-power equities, reasonable bond yields, guaranteed lifetime income for core expenses, and tax mitigation that lets you keep more of every distribution.